The Lover After Me
by Bria
Summary: Padmé reflects after Anakin finds a new love. Angsty song-fic to the Savage Garden song.


This story contains characters created by George Lucas and owned by Lucasfilm Ltd. Savage Garden (Darren Hayes/Daniel Jones) wrote "The Lover After Me," which can be found on their Affirmation cd. No money is being earned and no infringement is intended. Please don't sue, because I'm just a poor college student and have no money.

Distribute as you wish, with disclaimer intact, but please contact me before posting it on another web page. OK? I also must deny permission for this to be posted on any pages that are listed with the "fans.starwars.com" url. I welcome any, and all constructive comments to me at: swbriatharen@yahoo.com :~) You can find my website at the following location: http://fly.to/brias/

Dedication: To Theed. Your stories have put me in a song-fic writing frenzy, and inspired me to write beyond the OT and EU. Happy New Years girl, I hope you like this. Thanks also to Xander for previewing this for me.

Author's note: I took out one line ("Without you I'm always twenty minutes late") because I couldn't seem to make it fit into the story. If anybody has an idea for it (it comes in between "_But nothing seems to make sense anymore_," and "_Ever since you've been gone_") please email me, and I might consider using it and updating this story. Of course, I would give credit to the person too. ^_~   


  


**The Lover After Me**   
**by Bria**   
**Sunday, December 31, 2000**   


_Here I go again I promised myself I wouldn't think of you today_   
_It's been seven months and counting_   
_You've moved on_   
_I still feel exactly the same_   
_It's just that everywhere I go all the buildings know your name_   
_Like photographs and memories of love_   
_Steel and granite reminders_   
_The city calls your name and I can't move on_   
__ __

Padmé returned to the hidden apartment Obi-Wan had found for her on Coruscant. While she would've preferred to be back home on Naboo, she knew she had to remain here, where it was safe. Only on Coruscant could the Jedi keep her and her unborn children hidden from Anakin.

As Obi-Wan had escorted her from the hospital, she had promised herself she would move on. Nothing could be changed now, and there was no going back. Anakin had moved on, and with the birth of her twins coming up, she knew she too had to move on.

However, once in her apartment, her thoughts turned to Anakin, as they had everyday since he had left her, just over half a year ago. She still found it hard to believe. He had disappeared after a horrendous fight with her over her friendship with Obi-Wan. He had accused her of having an affair with his master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. How could he have ever _thought_ such a thing? She had denied it, of course, it wasn't true after all. The only reason she and Obi-Wan had been spending a lot of time together was because they had both been increasingly worried over the anger that seemed to be growing in Anakin.

He hadn't believed her though. Anakin had flown at her upon her denial. He stopped short of hitting her, but the fury Padmé had seen in Aankin's eyes that day haunted her. She knew it always would. Something had taken a hold of her husband, taken him from her, and she hadn't known how to get him back.

Tears gathered in Padmé's eyes at the memories. Nothing could completely ease her pain. Especially not on Coruscant. She hadn't met Anakin on Coruscant, but it was here where he had become the man she had fallen in love with. And it was here he had began his change.   


  


_Ever since you've been gone_   
_The lights go out the same_   
_The only difference is_   
_You call another name_   
_To your love_   
_To your lover now_   
_To your love_   
_The lover after me_

  


In some ways, Padmé almost wished Anakin had left her for another woman. It would've still been a cruel blow to her heart, but at least it would've been for something tangible... But no, he had left her not for a women, but for anger, power, the Dark Side.... Padmé would never understand why he had left. What could the Dark Side possibly provide for him that he didn't already have? He'd had power, he'd been a Jedi, a defender of peace and justice. He had the undying love of a wife, and had he stayed, he would soon have two beautiful children.

Instead he was seduced by the Dark Side. He'd left his wife for it, and instead of making a family and a home, together Anakin and the Dark Side made... a monster. A mockery of everything that he had once held dear. _Whoever would've thought Ani, you'd become the monster, the Dark Man that haunted the dreams of your childhood? You were always so weary of him, of making sure that he wouldn't find you. And instead you found him... _Padmé sighed, tormented, but at the same time glad that Shmi hadn't lived to see what had become of her special little boy. It would've broken the poor woman's heart. She knew it certainly had hers.   


  


_Am I all alone in the universe?_   
_There's no love on these streets_   
_I have given mine away to a world that didn't want it anyway_   
_So this is my new freedom_   
_It's funny_   
_I don't remember being chained_   
_But nothing seems to make sense anymore_

  


Having no one else to turn to that would _completely_ understand, Padmé had turned to Obi-Wan. He had held her that night as months of grief and heartache had surfaced and she had cried like a child in his arms. Anakin had become her world, and she had given everything him she had to offer, all of her love, but he had rebuked it all that night. It was also that night that Obi-Wan felt something in her, something through the Force that she hadn't yet been aware of... she was pregnant.

The news only had only made Obi-Wan more determined. He would bring Anakin back. He would seek out his padawan and bring him back from whatever hell he was leading himself into. It had taken him several weeks to locate Anakin, but he had, though the meeting had proved disastrous.   


  


_Ever since you've been gone_   
_The lights go out the same_   
_The only difference is_   
_You call another name_   
_To your love_   
_To your lover now_   
_To your love_   
_The lover after me_

  


Anakin had met Obi-Wan, eager to have his revenge on the his former Master who had not only tried to hold him back from his true potential, but stolen his wife from him. He was determined to make it a fight to the death. With the Dark Side, he had believed he would win. Obi-Wan later said that the only other time in his life he had felt the Dark Side so strongly had been in the Theed palace, battling Darth Maul. But like Darth Maul, Anakin got cocky. One misstep, one moment when he was concentrating on attacking Obi-Wan, and not on where he was going, had changed all that.   


  


_And time goes by so slowly_   
_The nights are cold and lonely_   
_I shouldn't be holding on_   
_But I'm still holding on for you_   
_Here I go again_   
_I promised myself I wouldn't think of you today_   
_But I'm standing at your doorway_   
_I'm calling out your name because I can't move on_

  


Anakin should've died in that pit. There was no logical explanation as to why he was alive. He'd been burned on over 95% of his body. His lungs had collapsed, and his heart had all but given up. But when Obi-Wan pulled a barely breathing Anakin from the lava pit, he had still taken him to a hospital for her sake.

Upon hearing the news, Padmé had insisted that she be at the hospital with Anakin. Day after day for several weeks, she had stayed there, waiting for her husband to return. She had talked to him, begged, pleaded with him to awaken, but all to no avail. Finally the doctors had had Obi-Wan take her aside and explain to her gently that it was no use. Anakin was brain dead, and nothing could be done. Her husband was lost to her forever. She had sank into her friends arms and wept bitterly at the news, and it had taken about an hour before she had calmed down. When she went with Obi-Wan to say her last goodbye however, there was quite a shock.

Anakin had vanished. The nurses on the floor said that nobody had come to visit him, and no one had entered the room after Padmé and Obi-Wan had left it. A check of surveillance showed this was not the case. Shortly after they had left, a dark figure had entered. A wave of his hand under his cloak, and he was inside Anakin's room. Thirty minutes later, two dark figures had emerged and disappeared out the door.

The tears finally fell from Padmé's eyes. The shock of seeing Anakin walk away, even if only on holofilm, had been great, but she had realized it really didn't matter. Anakin had died in the pit, just as Obi-Wan had said. He was gone, but she still had him alive in the twins she was carrying. Drained of energy from the past weeks of hoping against hope that Anakin would come back to her, she went to bed and fell asleep.

The next morning, Padmé awoke with a start. It was time. She called Obi-Wan and he came, to be there in Anakin's place, for the birth of the Skywalker twins.   


  


_Ever since you've been gone_   
_The lights go out the same_   
_The only difference is_   
_You call another name_   
_To your love_   
_To your lover now_   
_To your love_   
_The lover after me_   
__ __

Little did Padme know, that somewhere across the galaxy, far from the hospital where the children of Anakin Skywalker were being born, Darth Vader awoke and breathed on his own for the first time in his personal chamber. His Master, Sidious, was there, having taken him from the hospital on Coruscant where feeble doctors had made pathetic attempts to save Anakin Skywalker's life. They must've been informed by weak minded Kenobi of what had taken place. They just didn't get it. Anakin Skywalker had in fact died in that lava pit. And in his place, Darth Vader had been born, at one with the Dark Side.

THE END

******************

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